In a jumble, their forearms form a mocha spectrum. Oh, the men say: We’re all Black, but we’re all different colors.
Others in the marketplace describe Gates, who is Black and renowned for his African-American studies scholarship, with a variety of terms for someone of mixed race — more of an indication of his social status as a U.S. college professor than of his skin color.
“Here, my color is in the eye of the beholder,” Gates says, narrating over a scene filmed last year for his new PBS series, “Black in Latin America.” The first of four episodes filmed in six Caribbean and Latin American countries begins airing Tuesday. A book expanding on Gates’ research for the series is set for publication in July.
Throughout the series, Gates finds himself in conversations about race that don’t really happen in the U.S., where the slavery-era “one-drop” concept is still widely accepted.
